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Friday, July 27, 2012

Memories of my brother

Okay, I know I haven't been on here forever, and now, I'm not even going back to my story yet. This post is really for my nephew, Mike. Mike asked for some memories of his dad, who was killed in an airplane crash about 12 years ago. A few other people wanted to read it and this is what I came up with as the best medium to share. If you don't want to read about my brother, Bobby, stop now. This is the first 6 pages, I didn't want to make you wait forever while I finish. It's only sort of in order. And it's just my memories, some of them may be wrong.

My
Memories of My Brother, Bobby

First, a
note to you Mike, since you asked for this. I’m going to tell you what I can
remember, since of course, everything I say will be tainted by my perspective.
I’m not going to write it to you, though, because there may be things in here
that you won’t want to know, but you asked for them, and you’re an adult. There
may be things that your dad wouldn’t want you to know, but he’s not here, and
so he doesn’t get a say.

Bobby
Bogle was born on January 17, 1964. His parents lived in Tucson and were
attending the University of Arizona. They were young, his mom had just
graduated high school the year before. I wasn’t born for this, so I can only
tell a few stories that I’ve heard.

He
was actually named Robert Laurence
Bogle, Robert after his dad. His dad’s name was John Robert Bogle,
people called him Bob. He said that if his wife wanted to name their son after
him, she had to pick his first name and call him that, no more going by middle
names. Betty Jean Pickering had grown up in Chandler, Arizona with Bob and they
married soon after high school. She was a pom-pom girl (captain of the team) at
Chandler High, and he was the son of a successful farmer who attended military
school in New Mexico (NMMI).

Bobby
was full of energy as a little boy, despite or maybe because he was diagnosed
with severe asthma at a very young age. His mom had to give him shots for a
while and she remembers the doctor telling her that the drugs he needed were
such powerful stimulants that they would take ten years off the end of his
life, but without them, he would die.

Bobby’s
parents had a dog named Squirt. Bobby loved to chase him around their house in
his walker shouting, “Squee, Squee” and running over his tail as often as
possible. (A walker was a little contraption that they used to put babies in
before they could walk to keep them occupied. It was kind of like a bouncer on
wheels and the baby could pretend to walk all over the place. It had a little
tray for toys or cereal, as well.)

In
October, 1966, Bobby’s brother, Jamie was born. Bobby adored his new little
brother and, at the tender age of three, would comment on his energy with,
“He’s so rambunctious!”

Several
things happened in 1970, including me. Dad had finished his Bachelor degree in
business and was working at a bank when he was called by his family to come
home to Chandler to help run the farm. His dad, who was Adjutant General of the
Arizona National Guard, had been in a car accident. It became evident that he
needed some help to overcome his alcohol addiction. He had entered into a
program in Minnesota and would be gone for a while.

The
small family, two young boys, dad, and pregnant mom, moved back to Chandler.
They first moved into a small house in town and while they were there, a couple
of young men knocked on the door and asked them what they knew about the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Always curious, the parents invited the
young men in and they began to talk. The family soon moved to a house on the
farm, a community known as Ocotillo, about 4 miles south of town. The
missionaries asked if they could come again after they moved. Knowing that they
rode bikes everywhere, Dad told them they could, but didn’t really expect them
to.

Imagine
their surprise when the missionaries really did set up an appointment and ride
their bikes, repeatedly, all the way to Ocotillo. They kept coming and having
conversations for about 8 months. By this time, a baby girl had been born in
May. Mom and Dad named me Monique Fay, but the boys, now 6 and 3 wanted to call
me Rocket so they could send me to the moon or Football so they could kick me.
Apparently, I was in the way of their fun. In August, around the time of their
7th wedding anniversary, Mom and Dad were baptized into The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we started to go to church. I vaguely
remember that we went to Sacrament meeting, came home to eat and went back to
church for Sunday School. Primary was held on a weekday afternoon.

My
memory is a little spotty here, but I know we loved living out in the country.
We had two dogs now, Lovey and Shadow. Lovey was a black lab and Shadow was
some sort of black and white sheep dog. Lovey was the best dog in the world and
I think all of us who knew her hold all black labs in a special place in our
hearts. We had some random cats here and there as well, but Lovey was the true
family pet. Shadow was hit by a car when I was still pretty young.

There
was a ditch across the dirt road from our house and early on winter mornings on
the way to catch the bus, we’d check it for ice and see if we could stand on
it, sure that we could skate the ditch to the bus stop. It never worked. Along
Alma School rd (now Basha rd) where the bus stop was, ran a big canal, all the
way up to about Germann rd. Some of those mornings the fog would rise off the
canal and it looked like we lived in a fairy land. This canal was the source of
many adventures as we grew. We fished in it for crawdads, collected the tiny
shells that littered the banks, and of course the best, Bobby and Jamie would
blow up Bobby’s raft (a 2 seater with oars) and try to ride the rapids. The
bridges over the canal were a definite obstacle and decisions had to be made
about whether the water was low enough to make it under the bridge (laying
down, of course) or the bridge had to be grabbed and climbed over. It was high
excitement!

The
pasture between our house and Uncle Pete’s house held various animals over the
years. My earliest memory is of Aunt Karen’s Shetland pony. After he passed,
sometimes that pasture would be full of yearling thoroughbreds, for a while it
held a big bull that we bred with our milk cow. Either way, it was a source of
entertainment. The horses would somehow find a way to open the gate, and we’d
have a stampede on our hands. (Megan admitted later that she occasionally
opened the gate for them, just for the thrill.) It was awesome to watch Mom hop
in the station wagon or van, Dad would show up in the truck, and they would
chase those horses back to the pasture. Often a farm guy would come along to
help so they could block all of the exits and get them turned around. We would
watch from as close as we were allowed to without getting in the way. The bull
was more of a dare kind of thing. Which of the boys would go into the pasture
with him? Or, who was going to get the cattle prod and chase him out of the cow
pen when he would jump the fence?

The
boys had bunk beds in their room and loved to pull the mattresses off and jump
or roll off the top bunk onto them. Jumping off the roof was at least as fun.
Anything and everything was a possible tool for fun. Including the time that we
had been making political signs for Mom’s run for the school board. We cleaned
up all the paint with gasoline and Dad told Bobby to take care of it. We had a
barrel for burning garbage across the road by the ditch. Bobby dumped the gas
on top of the garbage and told me to get back. I went to the middle of the
road. He backed up as far as he could and tossed in a match. A tower of flame
shot up. His face and hair were burned pretty good and I swear that’s why I’ve
never had full eyebrows since. Mom actually had to take him to the doctor for
the burns on his face and Dad had a chat with him about fire safety. It didn’t
stick.

There
were a few neighbor kids whose parents worked for the farm around. Jamie liked
to play football with them, but that was sometimes too much running for Bobby’s
asthma. He liked to play spies and would sometimes let me help him, if I was
really quiet. There was a weird bush in the front yard (where that pistachio
tree is now) that grew so that it was really shaggy and bushy, but hollow
underneath. It was also pretty scratchy, but there was one spot where it grew
up a little around the bottom and you could crawl under then you could almost
sit up, once you were in the bush. We would climb under there and spy on the
other kids, pretending they were criminals or some sort of bad guys.

Another
game the boys would play in the front yard was (completely politically
incorrect) Smear the Queer. This was usually a game to play when lots of
friends were over. They usually played with a football and one person would
throw the ball up into the air for everyone else to try to catch. You would
think that nobody would want to catch it, but it showed how tough you were if
you did. Who ever caught the ball was the queer and all the other kids would
then try to tackle them before they crossed a random line. Once you crossed the
line, you were safe and got to be the one to throw the ball up for the crowd.
Kick the Can was a game that the girls could play too. Eventually, the boys
even wanted the girls to play with them, cute neighbor girls and friends
anyway. Kick the Can was like hide and
seek, but the hiders tried to sneak back out and kick over a can that stood in
the middle of the yard. If the seeker found you you were out, but if you kicked
the can you would win the round and be the new seeker.

We
never ran out of things to do, even though I’m sure we told Mom that we were
bored so often she wanted to strangle us. We rarely walked to the Gonzales’s to
see them. We would go in the backyard and climb the side of the play house,
over the roof of the Gonzales’s shed, down through a hole in the roof and out
the door. If we weren’t going to look for someone to play with, we were going
to beg a butter tortilla from Frances. She made the best tortillas in the world
and she made them every Friday for her family for the week. She eventually told
us we had to pay a dime each for them, it was essentially like we were eating
all their bread for the week. We saved our dimes as much as we saved money for
the ice cream man.

One
time, I remember we were going to Legend City with the Davis’s. Bobby and Von,
always the jokers, emptied out some mustard containers and filled them with
yellow yarn. They scared us all to death that they were going to squirt us with
mustard and out shoots yellow yarn. Mom and Dad were in the front of the
station wagon and Br. and Sr. Davis were in the middle seat, all of us kids
piled into the back with Bobby and Von squirting us with fake mustard the whole
way. I remember the log ride, but I think the car ride was even more fun. I’m
pretty sure Bobby got Jamie later with some real mustard after he’d faked him
out so many times.

I
followed Bobby all around the farm. He and Jamie would tell me all kinds of
stories. There were peacocks that wandered around when we were young. They told
me that the wings of a peacock were so strong, they could kill a man. This may
have something to do with my bird phobia. We would hunt for and collect the
peacock feathers all over the place. Bobby once offered the little kids $5
apiece if they could bring him a little feather off the top of a peacock’s
head.

We
would head over to the camp (the other side of Alma School rd. Our side was the
park.) to play in the cotton piles. We were not supposed to play in the whole
cotton, it messed up the long staple that our cotton was known for, but of
course we did. We would make tunnels in the cotton trailers that were probably
about 10x10x20ft. Once the seeds were removed, no one cared if we played in the
piles of seed. It wasn’t as soft, but it was still fun. They did tell us to be
sure that no one got trapped under piles or bales of cotton.

We
also headed for the barn for some activities. The horses were for racing, not
riding, so we just petted them. The haystack at the back of the barn was the
perfect place to play pretend, though. It was about 15 feet high and jumping
off of it was the ultimate proof of coolness. This was probably exactly where
our parents intended us to go when Bobby got ahold of a brick of firecrackers.
We didn’t want them to hear us setting them off, so he headed to the back of
the barn. We are so lucky that we didn’t catch the whole thing on fire.

Behind
the barn was a treasure trove of scariness. The chute for loading horses (or
giving them shots, or whatever) had a pole across the top where a lady had hung
herself, not really of course, but “never let the truth get in the way of a
good story.” There was a really old pontoon boat, haunted of course, and a
haunted house, that once it was torn down, became the haunted foundation. Tractors
were for climbing on and hoping that you could convince someone to take you for
a ride. In the Fall, hay rides were the best. The boys would jump off the back
of the trailer and “ski” behind it. Eventually, Bobby was the one driving the
tractor.

Bobby
always wanted spy sets or radios or something he could put together for his
birthday or Christmas. When he didn’t have them, he’d find something else to
take apart, just to see if he could put it back together again. He was so
excited the year he got his telescope for Christmas. Of course, he was excited
every Christmas. Every year, Mom would tell us that Christmas was going to be a
little tight and not to get our hopes up too much for all of the things we
wanted. Every year, one of the grandparents would slip Mom some extra money and
we would at least get the big thing that we had asked for.

Every
year, we would go to Grandma and Grandpa Bogle’s for Christmas Eve for chalupa
and tamales. Grandma made the chalupa (with a little help usually) and she would
buy tamales from one of the farm workers. We always got to open a present at
her house, and it was usually pajamas to wear home. We always got one toy and
pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa. We would play there with our cousins. Bobby
was the oldest cousin and so he really preferred to play with Uncle Jacky (JC)
or Dad’s cousin Bill.

On
the way home, it felt like it was so late. We would search the skies for any
sign of Santa Claus. Any airplane or helicopter was fair game. We were sure
that we had seen Santa and that we had better hurry home and rush to bed so
that he wouldn’t skip our house. We would all rush to bed and try to sleep, or
not sleep, but listen for Santa. Bobby would usually wake up about 4:30 and
come wake me up to go check out our stockings. He had tried to wake up Jamie
first, but he was too tired. Jamie would hear us giggling and come out rubbing
his eyes and asking if anything good was in our stockings. There was always a
navel orange in the toe, some pecans or walnuts, chocolate, and some little
toys or money. Our present from Santa was never wrapped, so we could obviously
see it. Our stocking was usually next to it. We would dump them out, then
refill them, so that Mom and Dad wouldn’t know what we’d done. We had to wait
until at least 6:30 to wake them up. As they got older, it became 7, but I
can’t remember a year that Bobby was at home that he didn’t wake up at 4:30. A
couple more of the presents he loved were the raft that traveled the canal and
a big Styrofoam remote control airplane.

We
had chores too. Each of the kids had a night to clean the kitchen. That meant
wash the dishes, including the pans, clean the counters, clean out the sink,
and sweep the floor. Clean the kitchen meant clean the kitchen. Of course, we
tried whatever we could to get out of it or put it off, but a dirty kitchen in
the morning probably meant a swat with the belt. The boys had to keep their
room and bathroom clean, but as they got older, their chores were more often
outside. While I was inside whining about dusting or sweeping or mopping, they
were out mowing the lawn or chopping weeds. Weeds had to be chopped from the
garden, the yard, and the sides of the pastures across the street. Taking out
the garbage was usually the boys’ job as well. One of our favorite (not) chores
was milking the cow. She needed to be milked in the morning and at night and no
one wanted the morning run before school. When she was in the pasture across
the road, it was less of a deal, but then she was moved over to the barn. The boys
would drive the station wagon over to the barn. Jamie decided he should teach
me how to drive it too. I was about 8 and couldn’t reach the pedals, so he gave
up.

Of
course, during this time, the other kids were coming along. Elise in 1973,
Merilee 1975, Emily 1977, Tom 1979, Chris 1982, Megan 1984, and Ty 1987.

I
think about the time Bobby was 12, he got a job working on the cotton crew.
This meant being out in the cotton field about the time the sun came up to chop
weeds out of the cotton. Bobby would leave with Dad in the morning (during the
summer). I think they usually got home a little after lunch and then showered
and slept. Of course, whatever Bobby did, Jamie wanted to do too, so it wasn’t
long before he was on the chopping crew as well. We were all taught to check
the irrigation lines and restart any that had stopped. These were just curved,
black plastic pipe that hung over the bank from the ditch to the field. With
the right technique, they would draw the water from the ditch to the field. Probably
around 14, Bobby started driving a tractor. He’d been driving a truck for a
while, but the tractor was a big deal, plowed rows had to be straight, cotton
that was being picked could not be wasted.

I’m
honestly not sure what Bobby learned first, to drive a truck or a tractor, or
to fly a plane. D-daddy had a cool flight simulator at the office that we loved
to play with. The boys could drive the truck or car, as long as they avoided
the paved roads. They sometimes had to run Dad out something that he’d
forgotten, or a lunch if he couldn’t make it home. Dad had a phone in his truck
long before normal people did. The first one actually looked like the old tan
office phones. He was always out on the farm and it was helpful to be able to
get ahold of him.

Bobby
took his scout training very seriously. He learned to shoot, what knot to tie
in what situation, how to survive in the wild, and he valued it all. I think he
liked to watch the old show MacGyver and try to decide if he could have done
the same things MacGyver did, or if he would have done them differently. We
used to have a tether ball pole that was used to swing on when the tether ball
went flat. The pole broke off near the base and just a little jagged bit stuck
up from the ground. One day, when Mom and Dad were gone, I ran into it and cut
my toe pretty badly. Bobby cleaned the wound, bandaged it up, elevated it (with
about 8 pillows, I think) and when it still seemed to be bleeding, called Mom
and Dad on the car phone. I think they were at the movies. The phone was set to
honk the horn when it rang, and so they came out of the theater to a horn
blaring across the parking lot. They rushed home, but Bobby had taken care of
everything.

As
Bobby got older, his adventurous spirit did not die, it expanded. He loved to
emulate what he’d seen on tv. He may be the very reason for the phrase, “Do not
try this at home.” Because he would. Dukes of Hazzard taught many great driving
lessons and there were plenty of country roads to experiment on. The railroad
tracks made the perfect ramp for jumping whether in town, or out. The 6-million
Dollar Man jumped off many a building. Luckily, Chandler didn’t have many
buildings that could cause too much damage. The guest house to the swimming
pool at Grandma’s and the house to the trampoline worked as substitutes. I
believe that fire ran a close second to the excitement of flying through the
air.

Bobby
was well ahead of me in school. I remember when the boys were going to John
Hancock academy in Mesa, I was so sad and wanted to go to school too. It was
1974 and I was too young. Mom tried signing me up for preschool, but it wasn’t
good enough. Eventually, she let me start kindergarten and I remember the song
the boys would sing about the principal, to the tune of the Army song. “Over
land, over sea, over Mr. Gaddy’s knee, there’s a wuppin a waitin for me. Might
be red, might be blue, might be Mr. Gaddy’s shoe, there’s a wuppin a waitin for
you.”

Soon
we transferred to Erie school. Bobby was probably in 5th or 6th
grade when I started. I remember they were just opening Willis Jr. High.
Although we always rode the bus, I remember we used to be part of a car pool
for seminary. We always wanted to go to Elmer’s for a rocket pop (the conical
tri-color suckers). We would go downtown for the CHS homecoming parade, Maxwell
Street days, eating at Serrano’s or Ortega’s, a 5 cent ice cream at Thrifty was
a great treat. (That was even cheap for back then.) We loved to go to Dudding’s
drug store, which we did a lot for Bobby’s meds, or anyone else’s. There were
awesome gumball machines and a fortune telling scale. A night out to Bob’s Big
Boy was pretty special.

4 comments:

This was amazing and sparked so many memories. We had such an incredible childhood. I made my kids come upstairs and listen while I read it to them. Kas told me I had to take a break and get a hold of my emotions before I continued to read.

You don't know me and it might be kind of weird but i was searching for genealogy info on Betty Jean Pickering.

She is officially my 3rd cousin 2 times removed.

I'm not 100% the Betty Jean you mention is the right one, but I think i'm on the right track.

The Betty Jean Pickering i'm researching her father was George Jospeh Pickering born in Ohio and died in 1980 in Chandler AZ. His wife Edith Viola Brannon died 1998.

if i don't have the right Betty Jean that's ok.... but i think I've found a good connection :) Have you done any genealogical research on your family? I have quite a bit in my tree on ancestry.com and would love to share it with you if you are interested.